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Thursday, August 6, 2009

The hurled turgidity

Like many, I'm saddened to watch the Oimplode. But man, there are days when you have to wonder which planet some of these folks are from. Here's an example. The headline? "New Willamette bridge to span cyclist-pedestrian chasm." A bit overwrought, perhaps? Then the reporter throws in this stuff: The bridge "may carry motorless people in such a way as to eliminate scraped knees and the hurled epithet."

Maybe they'd do better if they insisted that everybody in the place write in English.

I'm starting to count how many times they print "loosing" for losing, as in "We are loosing advertisers almost as fast as we are loosing readers!" I don't even understand that one -- some misspellings are logical, but loose rhymes with noose and caboose. Why are so many people loosing their ability to spell and finding a "z" sound in "loosing"?

The spanger realized he bit off more than he could chew and quickly retreated, all the while yelling misogynistic epithets at the tourist who was forcing him to retreat.

I walked the tourist back to his hotel so he wouldn't present too tempting a target. This encounter was right in front of the U.S. Bank branch at 6th x Salmon, and their security guard remained inside the branch (but did witness it). I called Chief Sizer and her assistant referred me to the Central Precint neighborhood task force. I muttered something about maybe they should be a blue ribbon committee instead, but she didn't get the joke. Sizer's assistant told me that she (the assistant) doesn't like to go outside in the central city because it's "too dangerous"...Precious.

Here's the best part, Jack: he works for the IRS and was visiting from Costa Mesa, CA.

What planet are they living on is exactly the right question. It's as though somebody was terrorized into writing a puff piece for something they had never heard of. What an absolutely irresponsible article that is.

I know this post is more about the O going down the drain than the subject matter of the new bridge, but I really need to vent. This is so disgusting to me on many levels.

The first level is that the Portland’s bicycle lobby in relation to percentage of the citizenry relatively has more power than the NRA does in congress. They have a strangle hold on city policy makers. This manifests itself with all the money spent on bicycle infrastructure. This spending is rationalized by egregious bogus statistics regarding bicycle commute numbers. These figures bandied about and picked up by local and national media cite Portland being bicycle nirvana. In actuality the 8% of commutes quoted only hold up for commutes from close in neighborhoods to downtown. And then they are still a stretch. The city is good at lying, look at the mayor.

On a second level the expenditures for this bridge are outrageous. Screw OMSI and run the Max where the Sellwood Bridge is and replace it. Portland needs more infrastructures crossing the river which includes automobiles.

Thirdly placing the bridge where it is now planned and building those rest stops is going to turn it into the next homeless squatting area. Well at least we won’t have to spend the 40 million on the new proposed homeless day drop in center.

India has sacred cows, we have sacred bicyclists. They tend to be young and male though.

Today I biked out the Springwater trail. At 82nd the traffic light was red for me and therefore it must have been green for the cars. But they stopped anyway until I crossed--against the red. Dumb and dangerous!

The 0 (and that's a Zero not an O) has sucked for as long as I have lived here (mid-70s). They withheld stories that might offend their advertisers. They censored Doonesbury (would not print it at all on several occasions and kept it on the op ed page away from the other comic strips). They withheld the Packwood story until after the election. They withheld all they knew about the RC priest scandal in the 80s (and they had info then). Frankly, the 0 has made its bed and now it gets to sleep in it.

As for the rest, well once again, I have to wonder how the US educational system cranks out "journalists" who cannot spell, use correct, grammar or put ideas together and who think florid prose is creative and belongs in print. Maybe it's time to teach Latin in public schools again. I learned more about grammar and spelling in Latin class than I ever did in English class.

You nailed it, Lucs, but missed my fave: The Oregonian selectively deletes material from its "archives" that is potential disturbing to is patrons. Many tales of PGE and PPL seemingly bright ideas that turned into disasters got disappeared. Shameless pandering.

Road Work

Miles run year to date: 80
At this date last year: 89
Total run in 2014: 401
In 2013: 257
In 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269